The Texas House of Representatives passed a bill to decriminalize marijuana and create a process to facilitate cannabis conviction expungements on Thursday, officially sending it to the Senate for consideration.
The 87-59 vote on the legislation from Rep. Joe Moody (D) comes one day after the chamber preliminarily approved the measure on second reading. Also on Wednesday, a House committee heard testimony on a separate bill to more broadly legalize and regulate cannabis sales.
The vote comes about a month and a half after the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee unanimously passed the measure, which would remove the risk of arrest or jail time for low-level possession of cannabis and allow people to eventually erase cannabis issues from their criminal records.
The House has already passed similar cannabis decriminalization proposals during the past two legislative sessions, in 2021 and 2019. But so far the proposals have consistently stalled in the Senate amid opposition from Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R), who presides over the chamber.
It’s unclear if Patrick will again seek to block the reform legislation. Marijuana Moment reached out to the lieutenant governor’s office for comment, but representatives did not respond by the time of publication.
HB 218 combines two separate measures from the most
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